Nirvana Top Laner, Reborn Tokyo Girl

Chapter 281, Section 278: Faker's Speech

Regardless of the results of the scrims or past encounters, it's unreasonable for them to lose to T1.

People often say, "T1 evolves in Worlds; T1 becomes more and more different from before as they play."

But Shimamura Yuna never believed in such things.

In her view, a person's strength is an objective fact.

It is virtually impossible to complete so-called evolution in such a short period of time.

This apparent evolution is all based on existing strength.

It's simply that, given their existing strength, they've gained a deeper understanding of the game's version.

Or, to put it another way, they regained their form when they were in a bad state.

T1 is clearly such a team.

They are strong in themselves, but on the one hand, there are many older players in the team, and on the other hand, there are many shady characters in the team.

This results in them being slow to warm up, often requiring a relatively long season to gradually regain their form and reach their peak performance.

Just like now.
T1 went from being the fourth seed from LCK to reaching the semifinals of the World Championship.

Compared to themselves, they have undoubtedly "evolved".

However, in Shimamura's view, this is not an evolution, but simply a team that was already strong and gradually regained its form during the season.

Even so.
Even at their peak, T1 was still no match for her.

Because WBG today, and she herself today, is truly at her "peak".

Yuna Shimamura's Alola is destroying Dolan.

It's not just about destroying his economy, his rank, and his role within the game.

At the same time, it also destroyed his confidence within the organization.

Seeing that the situation was not good, T1 quickly arranged for their support Keria to roam to the top lane and provide assistance to the top lane in coordination with the jungler, in order to make it less comfortable for Shimamura Yuna to play.

But still the same sentence.

T1 is a team that likes to make the opponent's solo laners and junglers suffer by having their supports roam around.

However, WBG is also a team that really likes to protect their solo lanes.

You love to gank my top laner, and I love to protect my top laner.

That's not called spotting a lone enemy, and that's not called preventing ganks either.

This is called a small-scale team fight in the early stages.

So, when these small-scale team battles break out, who usually wins?

The answer is obvious.

The Alora and Prince combo is already very strong in the early to mid-game, easily creating a lot of AOE damage and control effects.

Meanwhile, Shimamura's Alola is also far ahead in development and has a higher level.

In this situation, it goes without saying what the outcome would be if the top laner insisted on engaging in small-scale team fights.

T1 can actually make a slight assessment of the situation.

They knew that going to fight in the top lane at this time would result in a much greater chance of losing than winning.

They also knew that the Prince and Alola double-top combination was something T1 couldn't possibly compete with in the early game.

However, there is no alternative.

From the start of the draft phase, due to the presence of Shimamura Yuna, T1 has never been able to gain an advantage.

The hero chosen is at a disadvantage in both laning and team fights.

If you can't win in lane, the economic gap in the early game will widen.

Moreover, due to the team composition, even if they develop to the late game, there is not much future to speak of.

They have to do some tightrope walking to try and win through extreme means.

This is often what the weaker party needs to do for the stronger party.

The stronger a team is, the more confident they are of winning, the more likely they are to choose a more conservative approach to consolidate and expand their advantage.

Teams that feel they have a low chance of winning are more likely to choose risky, life-risking strategies.

After all, playing normally is just a slow death, so it's better to take a gamble.

only.
In the past, T1 was the team that was methodical and had a psychological advantage.

There's a classic saying that when playing against T1, they can be at a disadvantage and they can make countless mistakes.

But you can't be at a disadvantage; you can only make one mistake.

I wonder how many teams have managed to gain a huge lead against T1 in the early game, only to be caught out by a small mistake in the mid-to-late game and have their lead reversed.

T1 has always been a team that inspires fear and creates a sense of oppression.

But now, things have completely reversed.

T1 was the team that was being pressured.

Conversely, WBG is the team that holds a huge psychological advantage.

WBG is the one that sits firmly on the sidelines, convinced that it will definitely win.

Ok
Actually, not all of WBG has a psychological advantage.

Whether it's Xiaohu or Xiaotian, these veteran LPL players are hard to say they aren't afraid of Faker or T1.

After all, there are very few people who haven't been dominated by Faker.

The only one who truly possesses a complete psychological advantage is Shimamura Yuna.

But she alone is enough.

As long as she believes she can win, and as long as she isn't afraid, the entire WBG team's atmosphere will be boosted.

Because she is the true core of this WBG team.

Others, seeing the unfolding results, will inevitably be infected as well.

For example, right now.
T1 made a risky decision to engage in small-scale early team fights with WBG in the top lane.

They hoped to gain an advantage in small groups and then reverse the situation of being suppressed.

However, a low-probability event is still a low-probability event.

What won't happen, won't happen.

T1 is hoping that WBG will make a mistake, and that they will capitalize on WBG's mistake.

But this imagined mistake did not ultimately occur.

as always
Yuna Shimamura will not make a mistake.

"Holy crap, should we even fight T1? Is this even a chance? Should we engage Alora and Prince, who both have big buffs, at this point in the game? I feel like it's a 10/0 chance."

"It feels like there's absolutely no chance of winning. Should we even fight?"

"Holy crap, they're really fighting. T1 must have gone mad."

Even some of the secondary commentators could see that T1's decision in this wave was irrational, and it was a team fight with a low expected win rate.

In fact, T1 itself knew this.

But they did it anyway.

The miracle did not happen in the end.

Instead, a predictable defeat ensued.

"Holy crap, what is T1 doing this? They definitely can't fight this wave, it would be stupid to fight like this."

"It's over, T1 doesn't dare to win."

From the audience's perspective, it's hard to understand T1's actions.

Why fight a battle with such a low win rate?
Why would you do something like this?

Why can't we just play it safe and wait for an opportunity?
But only T1's own people know that the reason they did this was because they couldn't win if they didn't.

Waiting for an opportunity will only lead to death.

The game failed because the player tried to find an opportunity, and the game collapsed.

However, for them, it was simply a matter of "it still didn't work out." The decision itself wasn't wrong.

Despite the high failure rate, there is simply no way for T1 to achieve a high success rate when facing WBG.

From the audience's perspective, it's not unbelievable that WBG could so easily crush T1.

After all, considering both their previous head-to-head record and T1's recent form, winning is only to be expected.

It's just that the stronger team beat the weaker team.

The team in good form beat the team in poor form.

It's nothing more than that.

However, even so, people were still a little hesitant to believe it because the other side was T1.

They couldn't believe that T1 was really that weak team.

They couldn't believe that T1 was really the team that was in bad form.

After all, this is T1, a semi-finalist in the World Championship.
And T1's opponent is still WBG, still this LPL team?

Deep down, people still habitually believe in the myths associated with T1.

However, Shimamura Yuna's performance quickly shattered the myth.

It turns out that T1 isn't always the stronger team.

It turns out that even T1 can make so many decision-making errors and forced mistakes due to pressure.

This excited the audience.

[Wow, Shimamura-san is really that amazing?!]

[WBG really looks like a champion now. T1 just beat KT in such a thrilling best-of-five series, and then got completely crushed by WBG.]

It seems T1 has absolutely no knowledge of WBG, or rather, they simply can't do it.

It feels like T1 is drifting away.

Amidst widespread pessimism and skepticism, T1 predictably lost the first game.

In this game, the defeat was all too natural.

It was Shimamura Yuna who pushed the lane, resulting in a huge difference in lane matchup.

Keria was furious and wanted to help the top laner get revenge.

Then Xiaotian acted as Shimamura Yuna's bodyguard at all times, and Liu Qingsong also came along.

Whichever path Shimamura Yuna is on, that path becomes the site of small-scale team battles.

And so they kept losing, and the more they lost, the more they fought.

They've fallen into this endless vicious cycle.

Finally, the economy completely collapsed, and after a wave of resource acquisition ended, they were taken away.

It's fair to say that almost every team lost to WBG in this way.

WBG rarely faces a major disadvantage and is rarely overturned.

It's almost always the same formula: stick to the enemy, develop your economy, win a team fight, gain an economic advantage, and snowball to victory.

This is a completely standardized process.

The only difference is when the snowballing phase begins after winning a team fight.

In this match, T1's proactive speed-up caused this phase to start exceptionally early.

So they lose very quickly.

After losing the first game, everyone in T1 returned to the rest room with serious expressions.

They lacked practice matches with WBG.

The two teams have only met once in the Swiss round of the main competition.

This resulted in them lacking information about WBG and not knowing how to deal with this team.

All the strategies for drafting and banning this team, and even the arrangements made during the game, can only be guessed.
In other words, they are fighting an enemy they cannot see.

On the other hand, when WBG played against them, they were able to completely understand them.

This feeling is quite unpleasant.

Before the match, they could only pray.

I prayed that my pre-match preparations would be helpful, and that my anticipation of WBG's tactics would be useful.

To everyone's dismay, none of these preparations worked.

It's clear to the naked eye that WBG not only handles T1 in the draft phase, but also offers almost no breakthroughs in actual gameplay.

It's fair to say that the situation during the Swiss rounds is exactly the same as it is now in the knockout stage.

There's absolutely no flaw to be found.

To put it even more desperately...
It's possible that they didn't find any weaknesses in WBG.

Rather, it's simply impossible to find any flaws in WBG.

It's very likely that the mid-top lane swap strategy that WBG has temporarily developed for the World Championship is unsolvable.

This is similar to FPX in S9.

They developed a four-over-one rhythm that no one else could understand, and won the S-series that year with it.

During the World Championship that year, no other team could break FPX's tactics until after the tournament ended, when they were thoroughly analyzed and subsequently nerfed by Riot Games.

And this year, it is very likely that a similar situation will occur.

It might not even be able to weaken it at all.

Because Xiaohu and Shimamura Yuna are not, in the traditional sense, mid-to-upper-level swingmen.

This is simply two players with different hero pools, but who can play both mid and top lanes, switching positions with each other.

How can we address this?

How can we break this barrier?

The fact that in-game tactics are not working is bad news in itself.

In addition, top laner Doran seems to have mentally collapsed, which is another piece of bad news.

Faker sat in the rest room, sensing the atmosphere within the team, his mood somewhat somber.

Having participated in countless World Championships, this might be the first time since S7 that he has felt such intense unease at the World Championship.

He has lost before.

But it's really rare to feel something's wrong right after the first game, like today.

In particular, T1 has always been a team with a psychological advantage in the World Championship.

No matter how much we lose, at least we always have the confidence that we can win back what we lose.

But now, even that psychological advantage has collapsed.

This, to some extent, signifies that T1's last line of defense has been breached.

This is unacceptable to Faker.

He was acutely aware of what he needed to do as the team captain and the true soul of the team.

Although he is quite old now, he sometimes feels powerless when playing games.

I feel that "I must do something" is a bit too much for me right now.

but.
Now that things have come to this, if I don't do something, no one else can.

then
"Kids, cheer up!" Faker said to the lifeless rest room. "The game has only just begun, and we have many more opportunities."

"We've only lost the first game. We still have two more games to go, so it's not a big deal."

"Not only is there a lot of room for error, but the conditions for us to win are also not complicated. We only need to win three games to enter the finals, which is too easy. We have done this countless times in the past."

"Today is just a replay of the past."

"T1 will not lose to LPL in the World Championship knockout stage; this is an indisputable fact to this day. And we need to continue this tradition."

(End of this chapter)